


Sunrise loves go down....

by YawningOverTheTapestries



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Late at Night, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YawningOverTheTapestries/pseuds/YawningOverTheTapestries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it takes a step away from everything you call home for you to see it with clearer eyes.<br/>She may be a bad girl, but she is also the Woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunrise loves go down....

**Author's Note:**

> Well, did she make you cry?
> 
> Make you break down?
> 
> Shatter your illusions of love?
> 
> \- from Gold Dust Woman,  
> Fleetwood Mac

Paris looked oddly beautiful like this. Stark, stripped bare, shining with the reflections of the day. Tucked away from the riotous brightness were narrow corridors of shadow, blackened by smoke, with cobbled streets; the inhabitants were similarly dark and bewildering, but not threatening. She wasn't afraid of them - notwithstanding the fact that she wasn't afraid of anything.

Besides, she had very good reason to be here, in this seemingly featureless corner of another city. And it was mere yards in front of her.

She couldn't see him clearly, but she was certain he was there.

_There's no denying him. Not once they've seen his face._

Irene sneaked a look over the top of her sunglasses, and smiled at what she saw - an unmistakable figure stood still somewhere ahead of her. Like her, one of a hundred anonymous faces peopling the evening.

_His ebony curls, his crystal eyes, his razor cheekbones.... they all pale in the shadow of his brain._

His brain gleamed like a flawless jewel, emitting radiance she would love to bathe in, without a thought of anyone who thought otherwise about Sherlock Holmes.

She pushed her glasses back up, and slipped into the bar entrance, knowing full well he would neither hear her, nor hesitate to follow her in.

 

 

The bar was darker the Parisian dusk outside. Cramped and warm and heavily scented, cedarwood and incense and smoke all vying for attention. The claret walls and mahogany pannelling deepening the heady atmosphere, the candles at each table accentuating each shadow, as the bar seemed to disappear off in every direction. These little flickering golden glows gave all the illumination in the room, softly lighting the sprawling, rich space, and there was little in the thick, almost viscose sea of suffusion, noise, chatter, and soft music behind it, to grab anyone's attention. The overall effect was mysterious and dark and lustrous, quite luxurious but also very stuffy, not the most pleasant of places in the world, but in this subtly illuminated, uniform crowd, she, or _him_ , or anyone, could appear and disappear quietly without a second glance.

It was an excellent place to hide.

Irene eyed the shadowy room, despite her sunglasses obstructing much of her view. Clad in black velvet with a furry collar, she crossed her hands daintily beside the candle, deliberately not being assuming at all - indeed, for now, all she needed to do was wait.

 

Hitherto, this was all Irene's intentions. Not so much just a cunning plan, as also a path to redemption. Or the closest she'd get, anyway.

She'd read the headlines, she knew what everyone's reaction would be. And she was just as certain about the exact opposite. _There was no way he could possibly be dead._

Right from their first encounter, Sherlock and Irene had led one another on a merry war of wits and brushes with fate, both of them using every possible means to get their respective points across. And there were a few things she'd revelled in during their time across each other's paths.

There was no way she was going to let him frame her for that famous scandalous affair, and she was perfectly willing to resort to her cunning to do so - she _faked her own death_ , and did it beautifully. She was used to handling sensitive items, of many various kinds - and excelled in being strictly in control at all times. Admittedly, wading into deeper water did not help her _femme fatale_ reputation whatsoever. But after all, Irene had made her name as a bad, bad girl, and could never be happier any other way.

There was nothing that could convince Irene that Sherlock had taken his own life, or given him reason to back down and give up so easily. She manipulated him, teased him, toyed with him, attempted to outsmart him, but to no avail: the only thing about him she could find fake was his death - to her, he was solipsistic, deluded, incorrigible, confusing, scary, supercilious, icy, but not fake in the slightest.

Evidently there were many things that made her crave close encounters with Sherlock, his damn incomparable brain of course being one of the list toppers. The steely, guarded mind of his, the intrigue of that careful mask of systematic logic. And looking into his eyes - his moonstone blue eyes that sparkled in a thousand different glints and shades - she could glimpse the delicate genius lurking beneath; his enigma was such an allure.

This man simply could not die. The virtue of their meeting probably was just that - _he saved her life_ , when the worst for her finally arrived in Karachi. How could he die? How, when she'd clearly tapped a nerve in him, as he'd done in her? Why, was a matter in itself; she'd never had a chance to find out.

Was it.... ? No. It couldn't be. He couldn't feel for her. Not like that - she'd felt for him, and been roundly slain by him for doing so.

It was horrible, this unanswered question. What it had done to her, over the past few months, was beyond ordinary understanding - but that was Sherlock's speciality. Which was surely her favourite thing about him - she'd kill to take him on in a serious battle of nerve and pervasiveness. In the dark, silent, deepest recess of her soul, Irene really wanted him to lay eyes on her now.

 

On cue he materialised, virtually out of nowhere. An ethereal, dark, clean-cut figure against the hazy perfumed redness of the bar, backlit by the gentle golden light. A silhouette, almost a vision. But undeniably, perfectly real, and right in her eyeline.

Irene replaced her sunglasses, smiling piously. Sherlock noiselessly edged towards her, smoothly, deliberately, and laid his hands on the back of the chair opposite her at her table.

"You've got a lot to lose, darling. The world still doesn't know you're alive." Irene said solicitously.

"Good," was the soft, flat reply.

Neither of them stirred for several seconds afterwards; they could almost hear one another drink in the sight - or what was available to see - of each other. And realise that it was true.

"Well? A lot has happened since we last met. I'd say it's all been quite a joyride, I've certainly had fun.... I don't suppose you'd want to - "

"Not particularly." Sherlock butted in, slipping into the chair.

Irene plucked the sunglasses off her face, to look Sherlock full in the face just as he was looking her full in the face, and was greeted with the most sardonic expression she'd ever seen engraved into a man's face. And he didn't look much better - even in this mellow light, his features were sharper, his skin paler, than she remembered, coupled with a slight pinkness in his eyes; in this light the effect was subtle but unmistakable. Her smile faltered.

"Why were you wearing those?" he asked, his deep voice silken and emotionless.

Irene scoffed, her smile starting to regrow. "Asking questions is not the thing you do, isn't it? You don't need to. You flaunt the crystal prism of your intellect before us like a trophy, blinding us all with it's brilliance, and expect us all to still be able to see - oh, no, we've all been greatly mistaken. Sherlock Holmes does not _see_. He _observes_. Everyone knows he never misses the tiny, crucial details that us mere mortals so sadly overlook all the time. Well, maybe there's a reason none of us can't see the way you can, don't you think?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, silently criticising her sharp, insolent snappiness, though it was pleasing to know the times hadn't beaten her spirit out. The fierce Irene was the Irene he remembered, and the clever wordplay was assurance of that. The "mere mortals" comment was a nice touch as well.

 

A full thirty seconds of silence passed between them. Irene perched her chin on one hand, leaning delicately on her elbow. Her eyes half closed, she allowed her lips to curve into a don't-you-feel-me-now smirk. Sherlock returned her with an almost weary look, his alabaster-white face giving him an almost ghostly air.

"You clearly were trying to disguise yourself here. We both know what it feels like to walk alive in a world that thinks we're dead - you didn't put them on until you arrived on this street.... if I knew you, Irene, I'd know you'd have followed me here, or made sure I was behind you. And you kept them on until I made an appearance - you won't put them back on. If you were, you'd have done so by now. You're not really hiding - I guess the only mystery is why you bothered to bluff at all." Sherlock's rich deep timbre was so low, Irene could hear the subtlety in it. It was completely free of it's trademark sarkiness, which felt a little disconcerting. The underlying softness in it was fleeting, but she heard it, and something stirred in her in response.

She owed him her life, but he didn't seem too bothered by that. And still, each hint or gesture of.... what could she call it? Care? Affection? Whatever it was - each touch was precious. In it's deep meaning, and also in it's rarity.

Irene's expression changed a little, as she tipped her head into a more contemplative attitude. Whatever this new feeling was, why was it here, when not before? Had Sherlock changed since the last time they'd met? Well, in a way. What the world thought about him certainly had.

 

"Mr Holmes, why bluff?"

Sherlock cocked his head - that wasn't expected.

"You dropped yourself off the roof of St Bartholomew's Hospital. A wonderfully public way to go, falling like an angel from the heavens. As spectacular as I'd expect. And I doubt I'd be wrong to think it hasn't dented your pride in the slightest." Her voice was slow, purposeful, almost sickly in it's sweetness.

Sherlock frowned, but said nothing.

"Mr Holmes, you are far too fond of yourself to end your own life. Of course, you being the violin-playing, cocaine-abusing great snobby toff with an ego to match his brain, and an unlost virginity to boot as well, if you had to go, you would have had to do it in style."

Sherlock leaned back a little, so she couldn't see his hardening scowl in the candlelight, but he could still see her satirical grin.

"Ordinary people are funny, Mr Holmes. They'll believe almost any kind of title - either as a laundry list of initials before and after your name, or on the front cover of the morning press. So gullible, so indifferent." Irene sighed in mock amusement.

"You can bluff all you like, Mr Holmes. Just as long as you're prepared for everyone's reaction."

Without foreseeing it at all, Sherlock found himself unable to keep himself propped up poker-straight, and slumped onto an elbow, staring bluntly at the table.

"After all, no matter how hard we try, a disguise is still a -"

"Still a self-portrait." Sherlock finished for her, his voice a deep, guttural rumble, like a raging storm many miles away.

"Oh, Sherlock," Irene sighed, her voice an unpretentious whisper, almost as if she were praying.

And for a blink of a moment, for yards and yards around their little table, all Irene and Sherlock could hear were the seconds falling away, in silence, as if all of France, and all the world, were holding it's breath.

 

 

The moment died as quickly as it had been born, and to break the tension Irene pulled her fur collar open, and fanned her face. She was starting to go rather red.

"Is it just me, darling? Or is it warm in here?"

She rose up out of her chair, completely of her own accord, emerging a startling height considerably taller than Sherlock had remembered - again, all on purpose. She had on a pair of impressive five-inch heeled boots, and Sherlock really had no choice, sat down looking _up_ at her. He got up a second later and followed her out of the bar.

Where she'd gone once she'd glided out the door, Sherlock did not see. The sky had transformed from rose to black, with a faint ruby glow, and the cold struck his face like steel. But he didn't care in the slightest, or even notice - for the night was misted with a thick, nauseous swathe of tobacco smoke, from the assortment of Parisians lining the streets contentedly smoking. Sherlock drank in the smell, his face a decadent mix of narcotic bliss and powerful thirst.

About ten minutes later Sherlock was stood in the very place he was in less than an hour before, in the overture of his meeting with Irene, halfway through his second cigarette in five minutes. Doing what she'd readily embraced him doing - casting an impressive shadow against the horizon, exhaling hard and silently, and waiting once again for her to make an appearance.

For a long time there was nothing to be seen down the street, just plumes of smoke and deafening quiet.

 

 

"Sherlock?"

The call of his name rang out like an alarm, even though it was nothing more than a sharp whisper, from startlingly close by - followed shortly by what sounded like a struggle. In the glass of the opposite window, Sherlock could just about see enough. It was Irene, looking uncharacteristically rattled, with a stranger being rather aggressively restrained.

"Are you going to do anything?"

Sherlock simply looked back at her, calmly finishing off his cigarette, making no move to do anything else.

"Alright, fine." Irene gave a short vicious snap, cursing in surprisingly fluid French and slapping her assailant on the nose, before dropping him and striding off, with not a hair out of place.

"Irene, who was that?" Obvious question, Sherlock had barely the time to register what had just happened.

"I've no idea. He thought I was a cheap hooker and tried to give me offers."

Sherlock pulled a face, not sure whether to believe her or not. But he thought better of saying anything else, as the pair of them headed down the alleyway, an enveloping tunnel of almost pure black, lit by a handful of rather dismal lamps.

 

Irene, irritated by his reaction, gave him a cursive look. "Sherlock, look at us both. We're both hiding from the law and possibly having to resort to desperate measures to do so. And, one thing you failed to deduce tonight, I have _no idea_ why you've chosen Paris to run to, nor how you spotted me here - chance would be a fine thing, I suppose."

"I decided taking chances was not an option a long time ago." Sherlock muttered, hoping too late she hadn't heard.

She abruptly stopped and grabbed him by the lapels of his coat, forcing him to face her. "Don't say things like that! You know perfectly well that's not true. How else would you have actually pulled off a fake suicide?"

Sherlock blinked.

"Seriously, what did you actually want to achieve by performing that stunt?"

His stubbornness starting to flare into anger, Sherlock's impulse to grab Irene by her scruff was getting harder to fight.

"You have no idea what happened! I didn't have a choice. Your old friend Jim Moriarty had everything in place ready to kill three people, the three people I can trust and depend on more than anyone else in the world.... all I could do to save their lives was take my own."

Irene's fiery temper receded and she loosened her grip on him. Sherlock took a step back to free himself, and dropped his gaze away from her.

"Moriarty shot himself _right in front of me_ ," he railed, terse and angst-ridden, and pacing before her with his head stooped as if reciting a curse - the memory of what happened was egregious and too real, for Sherlock, to deal with any other way.

"It's true, Irene. I could never have imagined what was happening. Everywhere I turned, the idea that I wasn't real was getting stronger. I already had several people around me who couldn't even try to understand.... it was.... unbelievable. It always is, how easily an idea is born and how it grows and spreads.... "

Sherlock raised his head, his bitter expression cruelly clear in the pale glimmer of street light. "Me, a fraud, Irene. Would you believe it?"

He meant it as purely rhetorative, but to his surprise, a soft "Never," answered his question. Sherlock turned to her looking remorseful, and guilty. "I had no choice, Irene."

She studied his face for a long time, with appalled fascination, almost sympathy. "Darling, you're mad."

The pain fell from Sherlock's face like snow off a balcony, rendering him nearly back to his normal self. "Interesting assessment. _You_ did just break someone's nose."

"What - I didn't break his nose!"

"You did. From the amount of force and accuracy you put in that hit."

 

 

They continued down the alley in silent unison, marching past boarded windows and ragged black walls, straight for the sliver of light at the end of it.

This was a turning onto a wide boulevard overlooking the Seine, with the city laid out in it's glory behind - a spectacular view, with virtually every individual building all lit up, making an almost solid mass of shimmering gold, crowned with the shining white arabesque dome of Sacre-Coeur, and the sparkling profile of the Eiffel Tower further into the distance. Sherlock and Irene stood quietly admiring the City of Lights for a while, until she dared speak her affirmation - "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Sherlock didn't answer, or even turn to her; he was stood still and composed, looking longingly across the Seine, alive with reflections and snaking it's way through Paris past them.

She continued to watch him, with more intensity this time. "Sherlock.... ?"

A cold breeze stirred his hair, but he still didn't move.

Irene finally looked away from him. "What are you going to do?"

"I.... I don't know. I can't go back to London, though.... not now. Moriarty's network hasn't been completely dispatched yet.... and I can't reclaim my name overnight. I have to.... " Sherlock kept his composure, as long as he could, but his voice was starting to crack.

Irene looked puzzled, but didn't ask what he had to do - Sherlock sounded like he didn't quite know himself.

He turned to her, devoid of more words to say, but the rawness in his eyes - which was much clearer this close - spoke for him, showing how disdainful, and apprehensive, and _scared_ he was. Irene was quite sobered by this; he was a shadow of the Sherlock Holmes she once thought she'd known. The moment was long and torturous.

"I've never been tempted by fate, Irene. Probably because I've never been able to - I've been shot at and attacked by God knows who and how many, for a long time. I'm not a hero, and I actually don't want to be one. But I always thought this was one thing I could be good for - bringing down someone who needed taking down with me." He was barely audible, and despite his voice beginning to smooth out, the effort it cost him was huge, almost tangible.

Irene laid a hand on his arm. "I have been, Sherlock, once or twice. I know it's horrible, and how it feels when you know nobody can help you."

"John would call me a hero." Sherlock muttered, his voice sounding so frail that Irene worried she hadn't recognised it.

"He still thinks you're dead, doesn't he?"

"Shut up."

His voice had hardened out of anger and remorse, and, shaken by it, she was only too happy to oblige.

They'd turned away from each other again, but had started walking leisurely along the boulevard alongside one another, every few yards bathed in a sprawling pool of golden street light.

After a few minutes, more to himself than to Irene, Sherlock mused sombrely, "I owe John a thousand apologies. He's so much to me.... he's the closest thing to a best friend I'll ever have, he opened my eyes to how compassionate a man can be, he and I experienced and fought so much together.... he's loyal and tough and steadfast in every way, he's the best friend anyone could ever have.... " Sherlock's voice died once again, leaving a cold, bare silence that felt like no word could ever refill; he felt so empty inside, as if tearing himself away from his dear friend had crippled him and completely cleared his brain.

Frowning hard, Sherlock spat out his tormentor: "What the hell am I going to do without him?", in a thick, choked tone that made Irene drop all her superfluousness and wrap her arms right round him.

She could feel him making little hard sobbing noises into her shoulder, and hear his heart beating next to hers. But that was all she could hear; he was grave and quiet, trying to keep his feelings restrained and still himself.

 

Slowly his fiercely pounding heart began to calm down, and he found himself somehow able to embrace her back. It was alright like this, even though she was in full warpaint and unnervingly nearly his own height in those boots. She seemed to feel reprieve, in her comforting state in his arms, eyes lightly closed, her arms and face soaking in the warmth inside his coat.

The moment lingered on and on, neither of them daring to move, out of fear of letting it slip away. Fastened together in their emotional state, and despite it affirming the fact she did not beat him, Irene whispered something, which would probably never belong in any other situation. A single word that culminated all her desperation for him, and a staggering amount more, "Why?"

Sherlock hesitated for a second, before asking her, "What?"

Irene raised her head to ask again, to his face. "Why, _chérie_? Why me? Why did this happen to us? Why did your world come crashing into mine, only to be split apart at the seams? Why did the man who I thought could spin gold for me turn out to be your, and eventually my, undoing?"

 

Sherlock had no answer for her, and she knew it. So instead she stroked her thumb over his cold cheek, feeling the closeness of bone beneath skin. Her fingers then, of their own accord coursed forward, savouring the unruly softness of his curly hair.

Her voice lowered down to the faintest it could go, she asked one more time, "And why did you come after me and save my life?"

A thousand thoughts writhed in Sherlock's mind, all of them longing to explain indeed why Irene Adler had turned out to be so, to him. And his expression softened at the thought of the only possible true answer, and of her keen, sharp green eyes, her gamine pride, her gamely cunning, her uncompromising charm, her insatiable lust for life.

His touch was tender as his long fingers settled on her cheek.

"Because you, Irene, are The Woman. Is that not true?"

It certainly was more than true.

**Author's Note:**

> OK, you can go get some tissues now.
> 
> I wanted to post something longer for you this time. This could be read as a stand-alone piece, or a follow up to Thinking of Escape. And I'm afraid I might be starting to enjoy this fandom. Sherlock and Irene, as a pair, intrigue me - please, don't hate me for that.
> 
>  
> 
> The title for this is another line from Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac - one of my all-time favourite songs ever. I don't own it, nor Sherlock either.


End file.
